Week 2 - dreamshare catchall with Sandalphon

[fragileprophet]

[The week is filled with dreams.]

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[fragileprophet]

I don’t know how to stop...

[It comes out like a plea, unintentionally. How can he make Sandalphon, anyone at all, understand how desperately lost that he is?]

I’ve tried so hard to see in myself what I see in everyone else—I don’t know why I can’t, why I’m so broken!

[melancoffeea]

[The rebuttal that he might have had catches at Ion's shout. Sandalphon's expression sags and his body slumps in tandem with it. He reaches out to gently grasp Ion by the shoulders, ignoring the pain that shoots through his injured palm as he hangs his head.

The sad revelation dials his volume down to a faint whisper.]

All your life, you've played the part of a pawn. Of course you can't see it in yourself. There's so much in you . . . but I don't know how to make you see it.

[Because he, a discarded tool, has no reasonable basis with which to present his argument. Ion is lost, yet he can do nothing to help.]

[fragileprophet]

I...I...

[He feels like a child. Maybe that's appropriate. He is a child. He knows he is. He's never been allowed to be one, and he's spent so much time and energy pretending he isn't--even when his friends found out, he still had to be the Fon Master. Still had to watch out for the world.

And Sandalphon's hands on his shoulders are so heavy and warm and he wants to hold onto them and not let him go anywhere else.

Ion cries--for the first time in his life, for himself.]

I don't want to die.

[melancoffeea]

I know.

[He lifts his head and takes in the mournful sight. Ion's tears, the bandages—all the scars Ion must be hiding on that small body. Useless though he may be, Sandalphon will fix this the only way he knows how.]

I know you don't. And . . . there are others who want you to live.

[He'll fix this.]

[fragileprophet]

I know...I know they do.

[He knows, and it should be so easy but it isn't. He's always been so doomed, felt so helpless to stop it. And even though this place has been like a second chance at life, from the first moment they arrived it became the same cycle. Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, until he had nothing left. Until his life was gone.

Why does everything expect this of him? How can everyone want him to live when the world wants to badly for him to die?]

I don't want to disappoint them. I want to stay...I want more time. I'm so afraid. I'm so sorry.

[Ion slumps over even more, wanting to bury his head between his knees.]