Work Text:
Once upon a time, he died in a field of black roses.
The field was grand, black roses spreading across every corner, like a virus infecting the dirt and turning the grass into seeds that turned into more black roses. The petals were a deep red, hues leaning into the voids of darkness where shadows rested. The stems were green, connecting life from flower to dirt to feed nutrients into the breath of those that lived in it. The black roses marched their march of growth, spreading across bodies that coughed up dirt and petals like lungs infected with sick. Throat closed around flowers that grew from innards, sharp thorns cutting into flesh that bleed out into the flowers. His body is a vessel and he is the breath pushed out of his own body, choked out of existence to where nothing can live.
His body is a vessel for the things that once lived inside of it, a name for those that never existed but live on in the memories of those who wish they could forget. The shade exists in the color of the flowers, dried blood dripping onto tips of fingers to make marks into skin. The shade exists in the color of his pupils, black as night as they stare up into the stars. The shade exists in the DNA of his body, blood and fluids melding with foreign materials that don’t belong. The shade exists in touches that don’t exist, faded movements that linger around the fabric of his being.
He is alone in his mind, the thoughts running circles and he can’t bury them in the dirt because the flowers exist, budding and blooming and burst with life that he doesn’t have. He is alone, left with the memories of a life that once belonged to him but now never will. He is alone, buried with the hands that pull him under and the lips that drown him into the dirt where teeth sink into flesh like vampires sucking on blood. His blood is his life and it is being sucked out of him, veins dry as he can’t remember what he used to be or how he used to be. He just knows that he is, just knows that he exists and that he lives in service of always suffering and never dying for his sins.
The shade grows like fungus on a tree, clawing up limbs to cover once beautiful wood with ugliness. The shade grows along his body like rust to metal, breaking supports and crumbling buildings until there is nothing left. Mouthless smiles laugh out a tune that sings only to his eyes, a sound that buries into his bones and calls them home and eats him from the inside out. Tongues sink inside of him, licking and twisting and turning as he stares into the stars, wondering if the shade has also eaten out the moon. White drip, drip, drip, drips across his thighs, sinking into the flowers to cover them with white. White bleeds into black to create more black, the white sucked in by the void to be swallowed down by dark throats and teeth that are razor sharp.
The white drips down his thighs, sparkling off his legs as the flowers die under him. They wilt, pretty flowers turning prune under the color of white. They wither, pruned petals falling down to dying dirt. His body melds into the dirt and the trees and the flowers, black roses blooming where touches and tongues used to be. Dead eyes exist with lifeless hues that stare into poison green stars and moons with laughter that haunts his every waking moment. He wonders if he is already dead yet, if he has died long ago and if this is his hell. He wonders if hell was always supposed to be this terrible or if he just got really unlucky. He can’t close his eyes anymore, can’t find the parts of his body that still belonged to him.
All he sees is the void, the green, and the laughter that cuts deep into his stomach to make a home inside of him in the closest nature possible.
“What does dying feel like?”
He blinks, the stars of a clear night sky stare back at him, greeting him with the inches of sanity he does not have. The moon shines bright this time of night, the trees rustling with the faint wind that passes by. Shadow stares down at him, ruby red eyes looking nothing like the person who took everything away from him. There’s something horrifying in the fact that Shadow looks just like him, that his shade looks exactly like his. There’s something funny to that when he gets the two of them confused, when images blur into each other and he doesn’t know who is real and who is already dead. There’s something funny in the fact that both of them have died in two very different meanings.
Shadow died because of a heroic act.
He died because he couldn’t fight back.
Shadow died because he wanted to.
He died because he had no other choice.
Shadow died only to come back to life.
He died and he thinks he’s still dead.
No one ever talks about how dying feels, of how you stop existing in your own flesh. No one ever talks about how you feel removed from your own being, nerves disconnected like wires to a computer, neural networks dying out like a heart monitor flatling. No one ever talks about how you feel like a ghost, existing from the beyond like a spirit refusing to move on. Is he vengeful or does he want the pain to end? Does he want the pain to end or does he want someone else to feel the same that he does? Does he want someone else to feel the same that he does or does he just want to be understood? He doesn’t have the answers to the questions long since buried in the dead and dying black roses.
“Shadow, how did you find yourself again?”
The aforementioned raises an eyebrow at him, arms crossed at his chest. “What are you talking about?”
“When you died saving the world, you came back to life. You came back and you found yourself, past all of the things Gerald had done to you. You found you, the person that used to exist alongside Maria.” The red outline of Shadow’s skates burn into his eyes, like fire molten from lava. “How did you do it? How did you find yourself after all of that?”
There’s more to that question that he doesn’t say, can’t say because none of them still know what happened to him. He can’t bare to tell them can’t find the breath inside of him to inform them that Mephiles had done far more to him than just manipulate him. Shadow stares down at him like he’s an ant on the ground, crawling for life amongst the dirt that it calls home. He feels small like this, laid down on the ground in front of the lifeform, existing with only his heart and his breaths.
“I had help.” Shadow finally says after minutes of nothing. “I didn’t want to rely on other people, not when I still had walls to overcome. It took time, far too much of it, but I finally started letting people in. It started with Rouge and Omega, a slow and gradual building of me getting used to be vulnerable around other people. It wasn’t easy and I still don’t always say the things I want to say, but knowing that Rouge and Omega are there to listen helps.”
He gazes into the stars, lifelessly blinking as he absorbs the words. Sentiments like that would be nice if he still had Blaze around, if he was still able to talk to her. They both know each other, bonds crafted by years of being together that allow for them to lean on each other, for them to say all of the thoughts they can’t say to anyone else. He knows her, knows that if she were here that she would push him to say something, to trust them in that they most likely wouldn’t spill anything.
But when he looks up at Shadow, he doesn’t see the person that he can be one day. No, he sees the shackles of hands that still hold him down, whispered words etched into skin like nails into a coffin. He sees the shade that hovers over him when he looks in the mirror, when he stares into the ceiling of his bedroom and sees the faint reflection of the ghost that clings to his spirit. He sighs, breath slowly falling from lips as he looks towards the moon, white and shining and he knows that he can never be like that, can never be as pure as something like that ever again.
“I see.”