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#eidolon
operator-report · 2 months
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In middle school, I read a short story for English class called Flowers for Algernon. Maybe you’ve read it, too. In the story, a disabled man named Charlie is given a medicine that cures his disability. Over the course of the story, he comes to realize that his “cure” is temporary and that he will “regress” into being disabled again. The story makes it clear that this is a tragedy. As a disabled teenager when I first read it, the story affected me deeply.
I’d like to talk about David and Noelle. 
Content warnings for discussion of suicide, self-harm, ableism and eating disorders below the cut. Spoilers for Worm through arc 27. 
When I was first reading arc 18, one of the things that stuck out to me is how much time the story spends on Eidolon. For me, it was the first time I paid much attention to him - prior to that, Eidolon was just an extremely powerful background character to me. But in arc 18, we learn that (1) Eidolon is losing his powers and (2) he believes that fighting Echidna will allow him to tap into some sort of reservoir to bring them back.
We find this out, of course, through Tattletale exposing him, which is always an extremely embarrassing event for Tattletale’s target. It makes it extremely clear that what Eidolon is doing is pathetic. He is going to kill a teenage girl so he can feel something. 
Which would be messed up enough, right? We don’t need to make this even worse, right? Wrong. Because Wildblow has spent the last several thousand words building up the Case 53s as X-Men style metaphors for oppressed groups, and one of the forms of oppression that Wildblow generally writes well is ableism. I think you can consider most, if not all of the Case 53s as disabled in some way. I think the link is extremely clear with Noelle.
Noelle doesn’t get her powers from traditional Cauldron human experimentation - at least, not directly. Instead, she and Krouse are facing what is, to them, a no-win scenario. They’re quarantined with limited access to medical care. Breaching this quarantine would permanently render them criminals. If Noelle survives her surgery, which is a pretty big if, she’ll become disabled, in a way that both Krouse and Noelle agree is ugly and undesirable. She won’t be able to do “boyfriend-girlfriend stuff” because she won’t be “any good to look at, after.” 
Krouse and Noelle are terrified of death, yes, but they’re also terrified of disability. They are desperate for control over Noelle’s body, control that, as of that moment, only the state has. (Remember the quarantine?) Krouse pressures Noelle into drinking the vial. Noelle is cured. 
Noelle’s cure does not last. In attempting to assert control, her body becomes uncontrollable. Her body is her trauma and her eating disorder made literal. She still needs care.
Worm would be bad if this is why her life sucks. But Worm does something better, instead. Noelle goes through hell, not just due to the sheer difficulty of having her power, but because of the way her teammates and Coil treat her. They talk about Noelle like she’s already dead. They’re ashamed of bringing her the food she needs. When Krouse “includes” Noelle in a discussion in arc 12, it’s mostly perfunctory. They do not believe Noelle is human any longer. They lock her away.
Noelle doesn’t want to be put in a cage. Noelle doesn’t want to be dehumanized. In interlude 18, when we get insight into Noelle’s thoughts, we learn that what Noelle is angry about is the fact that Krouse locked her in a concrete bunker and placated her. When she tells people not to look at her, there’s a coda to that sentence that she doesn’t get to verbalize: don’t look at me like that. 
This is the person who Eidolon is going to kill. 
Via the Simurgh, this is a person Eidolon has unknowingly created.
A few thousand words of Worm go by. It’s Gold Morning. Eidolon is fighting Scion. Now, at the end of the book, we finally get substantial insight into David, the man behind the mask. 
David takes a Cauldron vial to cure his disability. David sees this as the only way out, after an unsuccessful application to join the military, and then, an unsuccessful suicide attempt. David is bearing an immense amount of shame and internalized ableism. David is worried that father’s friends are watching him. (Don’t look at me.) David cleaves the world into two kinds of people: those who can have jobs, who are liked and respected because they are useful; and people like him, who are useless.
It’s a terrible way to think. Without that worldview, how could a person not take the vial? David wants to be used, because David wants to be useful. He never gets the independence he craves – not when he’s in that level of debt to Cauldron – but he gets to be useful, and that’s one of the best things you can be.
Like Noelle’s, like Charlie’s in Flowers, David’s cure doesn’t work. His abilities are wearing off. He is essentially told, when Doctor Mother administers his booster shots, that his medicine is too expensive. 
Cauldron creates Noelle. David, as Cauldron’s soldier, has a role to play in her creation. David knows exactly what he is doing to Noelle. It happened to him. Worm fandom talks a lot about David being a father. He’s a father in more ways than one. (David’s father is always watching him.) (Don’t look at me.)
Cauldron never cures David’s ableism. In his world, you can be useful, or you can die. David asks Noelle if she wants to win. Noelle tells him no. You can have a job, or you can kill yourself. When David tries to kill Noelle to help himself, isn’t that a mercy?
Of course it isn’t. It goes without saying that all of this is extremely fucked up. When it comes to disability, “cure” is a complicated concept. I’m not going to get into all the ways it can be treated; this post is already a thousand words long. But I do think that Worm, through Noelle and David and the concept of the Cauldron vial, provides an extremely vivid picture of the problems with cure. 
Under ableist logic, when you have a disability, a cure is something you’re expected to want. Without it, the story goes, you can’t be useful. You can’t do boyfriend-girlfriend stuff. The expectation is social, like the act of staring. Your desire for it should drive how you organize your life – it is control, like a quarantine. David is crushed by that expectation. He throws his lot in with Cauldron, the cure-makers. The expectation is passed along to Noelle, and even though David can recognize that inheritance, he cannot imagine any other way to respond to it other than attempted murder.
At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that Flowers for Algernon is a tragedy. The reason that story has stuck with me so long is that I keep going back and forth as to why. Is it a tragedy because Charlie goes back to being disabled? There’s a good chance that’s what the author intended. I don’t know. It would be a pretty shitty story if that were the case. Is it a tragedy because people only treat Charlie well when he’s “cured,” and when that stops, he’ll go back to abuse? Seems plausible. I don’t think there’s one right answer. Regardless, when you’re disabled, there’s an immense pressure to seek out a cure, and a cognizable loss when it is withheld. The fact that Worm captures that social pressure and social loss so well is extremely compelling for me, and I’m going to be thinking about these characters for a long time.
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v-wind · 1 month
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2,5 hours scetch practice of line art and lasso
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artbyblastweave · 7 months
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I've never made any connections between Worm and the Captain America mythos before. Spill some ink?
Okay, so from a purely aesthetic perspective, the gimme is Miss Militia. She's the most obvious "Captain Patriotic" in the roster, she has the power of GUN, she's the only one who actively buys into the mythology of America specifically. She's a Kurdish woman occupying an aesthetic niche generally held by a rugged squinty white guy. She's an output of the melting pot narrative. She's sort of a rendering of what a grounded superhero who somehow became very aesthetically into America might look like. Not in the craven marketing-driven way of Homelander or Comedian, not in the jingoistic maniac way of USAgent or Peacemaker. She buys it in the broadly left-liberal (USamerican connotation of that term) safe, friendly, reclamative way. Why, what a great rehabilitation of the archetype!
She's also deeply, deeply afraid of rocking the boat. She's got a deepseated childhood trauma related to the bad things that happen when she puts herself in a leadership role. She goes along to get along. When she's proactive, it's usually to point a gun at Tattletale to stop her from upsetting the status quo. She sits through a lot of situations where Steve Rogers, as commonly modeled, would probably plant himself like a tree by the river of truth and go, "Hey, this is fucked up." She more or less capitulates to Undersider domination of the city, in a way that predisposes us to think of her as a voice of reason after all these total nuts that Skitter's been up against- but would Taylor "to relinquish control is a form of ego death" Hebert really be willing to leave someone in charge of the local Protectorate branch who she thought couldn't be corralled? She looks like a beacon, but doesn't- indeed, probably can't- ever truly behave like one. I mean, you can debate the on-the-spot morality of any given one of her judgement calls, that's actually one of the less exhausting Worm Morality Debates to have- but in aggregate, a person in American flag garb who actually meaningfully criticizes the paramilitary organization they're part of is not gonna survive long in that role!
So again, she's the gimme from an aesthetic standpoint. But what I don't really see a lot of discussion of is how Cauldron plays into the riff.
Captain America is institutional, but in a comically morally uncomplicated way. The serum was originally mana from heaven, granted to a living saint, conveniently divorced from any nitty-gritty sausage-making process and even-more conveniently divorced from the horrible consequences of giving the, uh, the U.S government a replicable super soldier process. And in fairness to Captain America, this is 100 percent something the overall mythos eventually patched to my satisfaction; the sausage-making process eventually revealed as prototypical government fuckery driven by human experimentation on black servicemen, the overall Marvel Setting littered with failed attempts by the U.S. Government to recreate that golden goose so they can have their fun new jackboots. (In Ultimate Marvel, this is how almost all contemporary superhumans were created, and this is a state of affairs with a body count in the millions or billions.)
Cauldron draws you in with the same noble rhetoric about greater goods, the same one-off proprietary irreplicable formula- but you don't get the luxury afterwards of representing nothing but the dream. You aren't partnering up with a plucky crank scientist with a heart of gold. You're selling your soul to an organization with an agenda. The narrative makes no bones about the fact that everything you do is fundamentally tainted by the fact you opted into an end product created through torture, kidnapping and human experimentation. You don't get to pull a Kamen Rider by going rogue or opting out or making good use of the fruit of the poisoned tree; you are owned, and everything you do has this Damocles sword hanging over your head- when are the people who bankrolled this going to come to collect?
So that's the question of "who would willingly dress like that" covered, and the question of who creates a serum like that. What about the question of who takes a serum like that? I'd argue that Eidolon is the examination of that. Pre-Cauldron David reads to me like pre-serum Steve Rogers viewed through a significantly bleaker lens. They're both sickly kids desperate to serve, rocketed to the pinnacle of human capability by an experimental procedure. But for Steve Rogers, the crisis was that he had a specific vision of the world and was frustrated by his inability to carry it out. Before the serum he picked fights over what was right and wrong and got his ass handed to him; afterwards he picked those same fights and just started winning instead. The serum neatly solved a problem he had, and to the extent that his mindset is influenced by his pre-serum experiences, it's generally constructive; a desire to protect the weak, help the helpless, an appreciation for people who stand up for what's right even when they're clearly gonna get pancaked for their trouble. So ultimately there's no dark side, downside, or underlying neurosis ascribed to his initial impulse to take that serum.
But with David, it's not a tragic case of the spirit being willing but the flesh being weak. He isn't a preternaturally-noble soul, out to represent the best elements of the American ideal- he kind of represents the inverse, a guy who's been failed at every level while utterly convinced that he's the problem. He's actively suicidal because he's a wheelchair-bound epileptic in an economically-depressed socially-backwards rural town in the 1980s, and he's spent his 18 years of life internalizing the idea that he's worse than useless unless he can somehow find a way provide value to something larger than himself. Doctor Mother finds him in the aftermath of a suicide attempt spurred by his rejection from the army- and he didn't even want to join the army specifically, necessarily, he just needed his situation to be literally anything else, and he took what he thought he could get. And then he finds himself in a position to become a superhero, so he does that, molds himself into that, subordinates himself to that, builds his entire sense of self and values around the value he can provide in that role. No grand design or sacred principles carried over through the metamorphosis. Just relief at finally, finally having something that looks like an answer to the question of what he's supposed to do.
And you know, you know that if Steve Rogers was facing down the barrel of being depowered, he'd smile and nod, he'd Cincinnatus that shit. It's happened before. But for David, the emotional trauma and self-worth issues that caused him to roll the dice on a Steve-Rogers treatment never really went away. When would it? He's been Providing Value as a ten-ton Hammer Against Evil for thirty years. No family, no social life. Certainly, no incentive on his handler's part to lance his Atlas complex. So he barrels towards atrocity in the name of remaining useful. Admittedly, this is where the comparison breaks down in a significant way; Captain America is much more of a symbol than he is an irreplicable powerhouse, so it's not catastrophic if he's taken off the board. Eidolon is so unbelievably powerful that his myopia and self-centeredness actually do align with a real problem everyone else is gonna have if he loses his powers. But in terms of the starting points- I think that Steve Rogers embodies the myth about why you'd want to join the army that badly. Eidolon is, I think, much more closely modelling why you'd actually want to join the army that badly.
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zhjake · 10 months
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Lancer Eidolon fight for a client graciously allowing me to draw my two main interests, big robots and fucked up meat demons from another dimension
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xyliaxart · 7 months
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I guess I should actually post this since I spent so much time drawing it. It's Dicentra again
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victoriadallonfan · 1 month
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Reminder that Eidolon is a Texan cape, and thus all his dialogue is in a Texan accent.
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cpericardium · 1 month
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How would you rank the members of Cauldron in terms of hypothetical parenting skills?
there is a fic about this very thing if you would like to see
I considered just copy pasting "distant and emotionally neglectful" for all of them but,
Doctor Mother: She raised Fortuna all right didn't she. Didn't she
Alexandria: Places high expectations on the kid and they definitely feel it. Also overengineers many trials by fire to fuel the kid's personal growth, but other people (e.g. faculty, bosses, daycare employees) are not allowed to administer those trials unless given explicit instructions
Eidolon: Somewhat protective and not bad in the beginning, gets increasingly insecure about his parenting skills over time and buries himself in hero work. Child most likely drinks a vial to get attention and becomes his arch nemesis
Contessa: She tries her best -> child eats ice-cream for dinner -> police can't find enough evidence to make the charges stick -> the case goes cold -> she tries her best ->
Number Man: Reads parenting books in secret and attempts to follow them to the letter. Gets flummoxed and disgruntled when the child doesn't behave in exactly the way they're supposed to. Starts reading classified cia manuals on enhanced interrogation techniques instead
Custodian: Enjoy your surveillance state kiddo
Slug: Most likely to raise a child who isn't damaged by their childhood
William Manton: We saw how this turned out
I just realised I didn't even rank them. From best parent to worst
Slug
Custodian
Number Man
William Manton
Eidolon
Doctor Mother
Contessa
Alexandria
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tagedeszorns · 3 months
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@ask-the-crimson-king - you brought this upon yourself.
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youtube
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mrdraws · 9 months
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Meet Ezra, crown princess and summoner! Her eidolon, Mafirith, is passed down through the family to each ruling heir, and Ezra must learn to coexist with him and wield his power :D
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junebugtwin · 3 months
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78 far from home - eidolon
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family reunion
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heyitschartic · 2 months
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Manton vs David vs Danny
Who wins the sopping wet pathetic old guy competition?
Manton can't be sopping wet; he's on that Siberian grindset and isn't nearly as pathetic as the other two. Between Danny and David the answer, I feel, is obviously David. Danny as a guy kinda sucks. He's not a great dad, he's listless and lost, he doesn't know what he's doing, and lets himself basically fall away from everything. David is even worse.
David is so much of a pathetic loser that he created the Endbringers out of his sheer, pitiful need to do better. David has all the powers he could ask for, respected and loved by billions, has the world on his shoulders, a literal secret organization at his backing, and is still the kind of failure who would sit around in his underwear mindlessly eating cereal out of the box staring at old reruns staring on a tv balanced on a cardboard box until someone came to grab him for a new villain. How is anyone supposed to compete with that?
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girlnextvore · 2 months
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Oh I was on a podcast and got to play Eidolon this is my character Diabolical "Dolly" Luna.
You can listen to me play her on the "loser like me podcast"
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v-wind · 28 days
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This sketch looks sooo wrong
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artbyblastweave · 4 months
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I've seen it said that Worm has two distinct takes on the Evil Superman archetype. One is, obviously, Scion. The other that I've heard is that the Triumvirate each represent aspects of Superman. Alexandria is the flying brick archetype, Legend is the charismatic aspect, and Eidolon is the "World's Strongest Hero" part. Any thoughts?
Yeah, essentially right, with a few extra elements- Legend is also the one who gets to have a functional civilian life, Alexandria gets the double identity element, and Eidolon gets not just the status of the world's strongest hero, but also the editorial baggage of the world's strongest hero running out of things to fight. Legend's also the one who gets to act as a critique of Superman’s squeaky-clean boyscout morality; he gets to have comparatively clean hands because he’s out of the loop on all the morally fraught decisions, and he’s out of the loop on the morally fraught decisions because he didn’t really look all too hard at what was obviously a shady setup. And this feels reminiscent of the persistent meta-level criticism of superheroes in general and Superman in particular (which for the record I only loosely endorse at this point, but which was absolutely true at one point) that their classic "good guy" behavior is only really possible if they're forcibly kept out of contact, on an editorial level, with all the real-world systemic problems that actually cause crime and war and so on, kept out of contact with anything morally thorny, kept away from the question of why something is a crime when a burglar does it but not when a Senator does it. Certain evils you're allowed to target, certain assumptions about the system you're part of that have to go unchallenged- assumptions that raise serious questions about the heroes' ethics, savviness, and personal politics unless you're portraying a world in which all of that under-the-hood societal stuff magically isn't there to be noticed at all. Which Worm, you know, isn't.
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littleouroboros · 6 months
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???tober Day 5: The Three Body Problem
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alwaysjustmina · 2 months
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Whispers of Rain
Chapter 12: Just a Stoic Statue, Fit for Nobody
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Thank you to @papaslittlesunshine for editing this and @midnight-moth for listening to my daily depraved thoughts. Also, thank you to @kamonart for the beautiful artwork for this story.
Fyi this chapter may hurt, but no major warnings.
Below the cut or AO3
Rain awoke in the very early morning hours, the darkness of outside just starting to be pushed away. He reached to curl around Dew, to pull him close and realized with a stabbing jolt to his being that Dew wasn’t next to him, the panic quick to overtake his thoughts. He rushed from the bed to Aether’s room, waking him and yelling that they needed to find him. They searched the house, before finding themselves outside Eidolon’s room, the door slightly cracked. They slowly opened the door to find both Dew and Eidolon fast asleep grasping each other in a tight embrace. Rain gasped quietly before he pulled back hurriedly from the room. Aether followed him silently, pulling the bedroom door shut firmly. He had seen Rain’s eyes when he turned from the room. The sorrow, the questions. His heart broke for what was in front of all of their faces.
“Rain, wait.” Aether quietly spoke. Rain stopped but didn’t turn. His shoulders hunched over, his arms around his middle, holding himself.
Aether quickly enveloped him from behind in a hug,holding him. “You need to give him time, we don’t know the extent of what they’ve been through, they have only had each other.” Rain nodded, but couldn’t contain the quiet cry bursting from his body.
“I just want to hold him, I want to take away the pain, I want to be the one he goes to.”
Nothing Aether could say would take away the pain, he knew that Dew just needed time though. Rain knew this too, but it still couldn’t stop his heart from breaking.
Dew had awoken in the middle of the night, curled into Rain’s arms. The dream he had just had broke him out of sound sleep, a sleep like he hadn’t had in many, many months. He was still in shock that he was here with Rain again, that it was his arms encircling his body. He watched Rain as he slept, breathing in and out slowly, his pouty lips wet with spit. In his sleep, his hair had fallen across face, Dew reached up to push it out of his face, gently moving it from in front of his eyes. His hand lingered in his hair as he tucked it behind Rain’s ear, marveling at the silkiness.
As he touched his hair lightly, Rain scrunched his nose before emitting a soft sigh and a smile graced his lips. He was beautiful, this perfect creature who somehow ended up in love with Dew. Dew had missed him so badly, when Ifrit had said he was dead, he had stupidly believed him. His world had shattered into multiple pieces, pieces he never thought he would be able to pick back up and put in anything resembling a shape. The only way he was functioning now was because of Eidolon. He had seen him through the dark, held his hand to the other side so that he could once again see Rain, be present and thankful for his love.
I don’t deserve him.
I don’t deserve either of them.
I am disgusting.
How can they say they love me?
Debilitating thoughts plagued his mind as he watched Rain sleep. The fear overtaking his insides so quickly it left him breathless. His mind seizing in pain, he pulled out of Rain’s grasp. He wasn’t worthy of his comfort.
Dew quietly padded from the bed towards the door, he needed to get out of this room before he woke him, before he lost his shit. He turned back towards Rain before he shut the door, the moonglow from outside played across his face, his hand reaching across the bed, searching for the man he used to know. That Dew didn’t exist here any longer.
Dew had planned to go downstairs to sit on the couch and await the dawn alone, but his plans changed when he heard a whimper from the bedroom next to them. He quickly made his way into Eidolon’’s room, opening the door to make sure he was ok. Their eyes met across the room, Neither able to sleep it seemed.
“You ok?” Dew asked quietly as he sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for Eidolon to respond.
“I don’t know. You ok?”
“I don’t know.” Dew answered back the same words, the same meaning.
Eidolon pushed back the covers and reached for Dew, offering his hand to hold. Dew quickly took his hand in his, grasping it tightly. As Eidolon watched he saw the tremor take over Dew’s body, the tears streaming down his face. He quickly sat up and pulled Dew to him, his arms encircling his waist, bringing him closer.
“I don’t know if I can do this?” He said between broken sobs.
“Do what?” Eidolon asked, “You can do anything, you are the strongest person I have ever met.”
“I was ready for death, I was ready for it to be over, I knew what I was going to do last night, my only goal was to get you out of there before I ended it all.”
“Dew.”
“It was my only priority.” He held his head in his hand, the other gripping onto Eidolon as if he was his only anchor to this world. His breathing broken, the hitching in his voice carrying his sorrow and fear.
Eidolon pulled him closer,bringing him to sit on his lap, his chin hooked over his shoulder, brushing his hair from his face. Eidolon let him get it all out in the quiet morning hours, just whispering words of encouragement as he caressed his back and ran his hand through his hair. It took awhile but Dew slowly relaxed in his arms.
“I don’t deserve him,” he whispered quietly when the sobbing had stopped.
Eidolon’s heart broke for him, broke for himself, broke for Rain. He didn’t know what to say, he just held him tighter.
“I don’t deserve you, either.” Dew said it so quietly, Eidolon wasn’t sure he heard him right.
“Dew you deserve everything, you protected us, both of us. This wasn’t your fault what Ifrit did.”
Dew shook his head and looked at Eidolon, “Yes, it is. I loved him, why didn’t I see that he was this messed up? I am just as messed up as him for loving him, this is my fault.”
Eidolon knew he wasn’t going to get through to him, he was lost in his fear and memories of the last months. As they held each other, their pain mirroring the others, they slowly lost the battle against exhaustion and reclined further back on the bed until they were laying side by side, arms and legs entwined. Holding onto the other as if their lives depended on it.
Dew and Eidolon made their way downstairs the next morning, not saying anything. Dew knew Rain was probably up, and he knew if he had seen them together that he would have had a lot of questions. Questions Dew wasn’t sure if he was ready to answer.
Aether and Rain were sitting in the dining room, next to the kitchen, in silence, the looks on their faces looked like they had been having an in depth conversation. Did they stop because of Dew and Eidolon?
“Dew, Eidolon, coffee?” Aether asked as he saw them, he quickly rose from his seat across from Rain and moved towards the pot to pour for the two of them when they both nodded. Dew moved into Aether’s vacated seat, Eidolon sitting beside him. He looked up to see Rain already looking at him, his eyes haunted and blood shot. Yeah, Rain knew he had fallen asleep in Eidolon’s room. He quickly looked away to see Aether approach the table with two steaming cups and placed them in front of them before grabbing his and Rain’s to refill as well.
The silence around the table was uncomfortable, not how Rain nor Dew thought their reunion would be. All Rain wanted was Dew next to him, with his hand in his, they could face everything else as it came, together. It felt though that they were worlds apart though. Rain knew that Dew had been through alot and he had to give him time, his heart just grieved that he wasn’t the person Dew turned to. He silently wiped the tears forming in his eyes hopefully before anyone saw them.
Clearing his throat as he sat, Aether asked, “You both are probably hungry, what would you like, there is stuff here, but I can run out if I need to.”
Eidolon spoke up, he knew Dew was spiraling and he had seen the tears in Rain’s eyes, “Yes, it has been a day since either of us have eaten and I know Dew has lost weight here, so anything would be good.”
“Ok then, I can do that. Care to help me?” He asked Eidolon.
Eidolon looked at Dew before agreeing to assist, Dew nodded his head at him, indicating that he would be ok. He hated the idea of leaving Dew alone after last night, not alone but without him being there if he needed him again. He knew he had Rain, but he still wanted to be his friend.
In the kitchen, Aether was already pulling out all the ingredients to make breakfast. He couldn’t get over the fact that he was his brother. There was a small glimmer of hope in his chest that he would get to know him, or that whatever was wrong with his memory would fix itself so he could remember him, remember his family.
Aether could see Eidolon struggling with all of the stress of the situation, but he had to get him out of that room so that Dew and Rain could talk. He wished he could hold his baby brother and tell him he would take away all of the pain, all of the past memories with Ifrit, but he was terrified that gesture would be rejected. Instead, he handed Eidolon ingredients to start working with. They worked in relative silence for a while before Eidolon broke the silence.
“Do you think Dew is ok?” He asked tentatively.
“You care about him a lot, don’t you?” Aether mumbled quietly before adding, “He will be fine, I have never seen a stronger connection than what those two have, they just need a moment to talk.”
Eidolon twisted his hands, his nerves showing through his motions, “I just don’t want him to feel alone or like he has to save all of us.”
Aether turned to look at Eidolon, studying the set of his jaw, the slight wobble of his chin, his eyes glassy. He reached out to put a hand on Eidolon’s arm before saying, “You’ve got me, Eidolon. I promise I will do whatever I can to keep you safe, Dew can take a break from that position. It will give him and Rain time to reunite and you and I to get to know each other again.”
Still Eidolon looked through the door to the dining room, trying to make sure Dew was ok. He kept telling himself, don’t be selfish, Rain is his mate, he doesn’t want you, it doesn’t matter that you are in love with him.
Aether watched him as he kept looking back and forth, he knew as he watched, that Eidolon was in love with Dew. Oh, baby, Phantom,, he thought, I wish I could take that heartbreak from you.
“Would you like to get to know me?” Aether spoke up, pulling Eidolon’s attention back to him.
Eidolon didn’t respond at first as studied he Aether, trying to see if he was being sincere. He decided to take that first step though and silently nodded his head. They had all the time in the world and he looked forward to getting to know him and maybe to distract himself from his heart breaking.
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When Rain and Dew were alone in the room the silence stretched even further. Neither knowing how or where to start. Finally Rain broke the silence.
“How did you sleep?” There was no bitterness in his words, only concern.
“I had a nightmare and couldn’t sleep so I got up and walked around for a while.” Not mentioning his trip into Eidolon’s room.
Rain’s eyes looked everywhere but at Dew as he responded, “You know you could have woken me, I want to be there for you when you're hurting.”
Dew couldn’t respond, he knew this, he knew he could wake Rain and he would do whatever was needed to make Dew happy, safe, loved. Dew was broken though, Rain didn’t need to know the extent of how much.
Rain made the first move, putting his hand on the table, open to see if Dew would hold it. Dew looked at it and a sob bubbled to the surface before he grabbed the lifeline Rain offered. They both cried as they held hands before Rain, whispered, “Come here.”
On shaky legs Dew moved to sit next to Rain, crashing into his side as he put his arm around Dew and held their bodies flush together. Dew continued to cry as Rain held him. Whispering in his ear, “I love you, Dewdrop, you don’t need to hide from me, I am here. Whatever you need, I am here, always.”
No more words were said, this wasn’t the time, they needed to have a conversation, but needed the time that having two other people in a room next to them didn’t afford. They clung to each other before they were interrupted by the others bringing in heaping platefuls of food to the table.
Plates were set in front of Rain and Dew filled to the brim with different choices of savory and sweet. The other two sat across from them as they dug into their food. Rain picked up his fork to eat while still keeping an arm around Dewdrop. When Dew made no move to eat and just pushed his plate away, Rain nudged his side and whispered that he had to eat something even if it was just a few bites. When he still didn’t eat, Rain didn’t push it further, he leaned down and kissed Dew’s forehead before continuing with his food.
Eidolon noticed the exchange and when Rain didn’t push he became irritated, Dew needed to eat, he knew it had been days since his last meal, his energy quickly depleting because of it. He wouldn’t let Dew give up.
“Dew, you have to eat.”
“I am not hungry, Eidolon.” He mumbled back.
“Dew it has been days since you have eaten anything.”
When he didn’t answer or move to his plate, Eidolon continued. “Dew, please, I won’t let you give up.”
Rain looked up at Eidolon, he wondered if anyone else heard the unspoken, “even if Rain will.” He knew that was where Eidolon was going with it, who did he think he was that he knew Dew better than him? Where did he get off?
“Dew-”
“Give it a rest, he said he wasn’t hungry.” Rain had it, couldn’t he just take care of Dew himself, just let him have some time.
“No, I won’t give it a rest, he needs to eat. Why aren’t you pushing it more? I thought you cared about him.”
WHAT? Rain quickly pushed his chair from the table, seething in anger, how dare he question how he felt about Dew, he didn’t know what they went through. He didn’t care if Eidolon had been there for Dew these past months, he was done with everyone else in their relationship. As the chair fell backwards on the floor, Rain was already on the other side of the table pulling Eidolon to his feet.
“How dare you! You may have been with him these past months, but I know Dewdrop. I know when to push, I know when to leave it until later, we are mated in all but the ceremony. He is exhausted, he hasn’t slept, he doesn’t eat well after a restless night.” He had grabbed onto the front of Eidolon’s shirt as he yelled in his face.
Eidolon didn’t back down though, “How dare I? Really? I know Dewdrop too, he is exhausted because he hasn’t eaten, do you even know what he has been through these past months. Do you? You may be practically mated, but you are an idiot if you think you should let this go.”
“Fuck you!”
They were at each other's throats before Dew could even get around the table between them, screaming at them to stop. They both looked down at Dew as he begged them to quit and pulled away from each other, mumbling a sorry to Dew. Not to each other.
“I will eat, Eidolon, just give me a minute.” Eidolon looked at Rain when Dew couldn’t see his face with a triumphant smirk. Dew continued, “Rain, Rain, it is ok, you are right, I don’t normally eat when I feel like this. For you, I will try though.”
Rain may have wanted to stick his tongue out at Eidolon, but he refrained.
“So, um, yeah, we need to decide when we should go back in town to go through the portal back to the abbey.” Aether interjected to bring noise to the quiet room, Dew picked at his food as both Eidolon and Rain watched him and each other. Aether knew that the two of them were going to have it out, he just didn’t necessarily think it was best to have that argument in front of Dew or before they went back topside.
“Ifrit isn’t going to stop, he is going to know I went to the surface.” Dew grimaced between bites.
“Yeah we are going to have to take care of him before we go too.” Aether replied.
“Take care of?” Eidolon asked, turning from Rain’s glare.
“Yes, Rain has to stop him, he is the only one that can due to the agreement we made coming here.”
“What? Absolutely not.” Dew now was the one shouting at the group.
“It is ok, Dew. I will be ok.” Rain tried to sooth.
“Rain, he is only going to be more vicious, we embarrassed him yesterday. He will be on a rampage and ready for the attack.” The tears had filled his eyes again as he begged. Why didn’t they all let him take care of Ifrit yesterday? Why?
“It is the only way, and Aether can go with me. We have a plan.”
They didn’t leave the house that day, eating, sleeping, trying to regain some strength. Rain longed for Dew to talk to him, but he wouldn’t push. The day turned into days. Every night, Rain would go to bed with Dew and in the morning he would still be entwined in Eidolon’s arm. It was slowly destroying him that Dew wouldn’t turn to him.
Rain came across Eidolon one of those mornings as he came out of the bedroom he knew Dew was for sure in, he couldn’t even look at Eidolon as he closed the door behind him.
Eidolon could hear his sigh as he went to pass him in the hall.
“What Rain?”
“Nothing, Eidolon.”
“No, Rain, I know your pissed he comes to me every night, but I won’t turn him away. You need to stop thinking of the Dew you used to know. Again you have no idea what he has been through, do you?” Eidolon was done, last night he pulled Dew to him as he sobbed, feeling unworthy of Rain’s love. “Do you know what Ifrit did to him? Do you have any idea? Cause I saw it all with my own eyes, and I am telling you I wouldn’t have survived it, I don’t know how he did. If it helps for me to hold him or offer him support, I will do, be whatever he needs.”
Rain met Eidolon’s eyes, he had a pretty good idea of what Dew had been through. He was told about the party and what happened with Dew up against the wall that his friends had seen. He just wanted to be the one he turned to, was that so wrong?
Eidolon crowded Rain to the wall with a growl when he didn’t respond. “Get your head out of your feelings, and be there for him.”
Rain watched as Eidolon walked off before he stepped back into his room, sliding to the floor, not knowing how to help Dew.
The next time it happened he awoke to Dew moving from the bed, darkness outside the window. “Please don’t go to him,” Rain begged in silent whispers to Dewdrop.
When Dew heard his plea, he turned to Rain. “Rain, I can’t…I can’t, you don’t know what Ifrit did.”
“Tell me Dew, let me be the one you turn to, I love you, I know you went through torture, but I want to be the one you need in the darkness of the night. Let me be the one,” he begged.
His eyes remained fixed on the sheets between them, the rumpled linen, Rain’s hand reaching towards him but afraid to touch, afraid to show him how much he needed him. The unanswered question of why did he go to Eidolon, when Rain was here, Rain was the one he vowed to love forever. Did they let Ifrit destroy what they had?
Dew pushed from his seated position in the bed, to stand. The noise that Rain emitted was filled with so much sorrow that again, Dew turned from him and was going to someone else. Dew didn’t leave though, he turned back around and grabbed Rain’s hand asking him, why? Why did it matter who got to hear what he went though, he didn’t want Rain to know.
Rain stared into his eyes, how could he ask that? Rain didn’t want to hear the horrible things Ifrit did, but he wanted to be there for Dew, anything for him, and if that meant hearing all the horrible things he would listen, he would comfort him.
“It will kill me, Dew, if you go to him.” He cried into the sheets, “ I am sorry, I shouldn’t put that on you.”
Dew crawled back into the bed to hold Rain this time, arms wrapped around him. He’d stay, he couldn’t do this to Rain. He didn’t want to but he was going to have to share with Rain what Ifrit did, that he wasn’t sure if Ifrit put a child in him.
He only hoped Rain could forgive him for what he allowed to happen.
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