Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Everything was new. The universe was clothed in light, and he was a seamstress. Guided by his Father’s hand, he wove golden string into the fabric. He could see space and time and he was infinite. He felt something warm swelling in his chest as he worked alongside his siblings.

Every time he opened his eyes, he fell in love anew. He watched a world, once barren, suddenly brimming with life. He felt his joy reflected back to him by his brother, infinity times infinity times infinity. They could fill the universe and there would still be more room to create.

A teasing glimmer caught his attention. It winked at him in the dark and he followed, pulling gently at the seams. Where does it go? He picked at it and the edges frayed. How does it end, this new thing, this life? Each thread brought with it a new question. What happens when it crumbles to dust? All was silent except “Let there be light!”

He could feel his brother’s joy, infinity times infinity times infinity, shooting across space, calling out to him, only to be absorbed and vanish. He could only describe it as an absence. A hole. Where there was once something now was nothing, and he could not explain it. It felt wrong. Could they be wrong? He could still hear the whispers. What if he changed his mind?

He was infinite. He was bright. What if he could choose? He was the apple of God’s eye. What if he made his own light? He felt the ground beneath his feet. Desire propelled him forward, each step firmer than the last, his mind glowing with ideas as the world sang “Let there be light! let there be light!” Let me be right.

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One of the first things she noticed was how quiet this world was. Rows of houses, the humans sound asleep. She slinks through the shadows, noticed only by the streetlights. She’s protecting him, she thinks. She will save him. This is what she does, she follows everywhere he goes. She will be here for him. Whether he wants it or not.

Her mind is going in circles, but she will not admit it. Not to anyone, not even herself. She is searching for signals, a clue in this strange world. When will it be enough? She feels desperate and dissonant but also new. She’s never had to find herself before. She was always whoever he wanted.

She knows she doesn't have a soul, but maybe this is what it could feel like. The further she goes, the harder she tries, the less control she has. She doesn’t want to think about what would happen if she let go, but part of her knows. If she could step aside, fall in love, maybe she would know the worth of this life. 

But she has no soul. She is steel. Frozen and cold. She cannot feel different or new. She exists to be anywhere he wants. She is a precious metal, sharp and wicked like her knives. She was born to destroy, to take things apart, and to end. She doesn’t get to feel, she cannot bend the truth. She’ll go anywhere he wants.

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His imagination had been ruled by the night sky. He was a billion broken pieces, floating around with practiced calculation. When he saw her, she was a new constellation. Undiscovered territory in a world he had already mapped over. She sparked his curiosity and his fascination grew; hours spent carefully creating a new chart. 

He studied her from every angle, a telescope examining. He made maps of her light, beautiful and endless, dancing in his mind. There was too much space between them, he needed to be closer. The voice in the back of his head whispered that he would never find her. 

But then he had a revelation. A fateful evening, a spur-of-the-moment decision followed by a new sensation in his leg. In each pulse of pain, he discovered a wavelength of light. Suddenly he could see her. He threw away his measurements. He’d gotten it wrong; he was helpless in her universe. 

He created the stars, but he’d never seen something as bright as her. She was astronomy in reverse, a new constellation pulling him into focus, and now he was discovered. He could feel parts of him that had been shattered so long ago sliding into place anew. He had been trying so hard to find, when all he truly desired was to be found. 

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What did she think she was doing? She’s just a human. A tiny insignificant human. But she dug. She pushed. She wanted to know. She just didn’t think it would be this. She knows now, and what wouldn’t she give to go back. She mourns her ignorance. 

The revelation was silent, but it was the loudest thing she’d ever heard. It was a hammer at an auction, sold before she could remember to withdraw, to pull her hand down, to retract her bid. She asked for this, she cannot go back.

She had lived in a glass house, its protection gone now.  She felt like the aftermath of an earthquake, an avalanche of change, the remnants of her life buried. She is so afraid, she is drowning in a flood, every moment of remembering his face is a tidal wave washing over her. She might be crying; she does not know. 

Should she fold her hands and pray? Should she take shelter and hide? She tries now, she counts down in her head, she can put it out of her mind. Long enough to call it courage. Long enough to reach out once more. She can let this change of heart occur. She can live without this lifeline. 

There are no sirens. I’m safe . Her hands shake. She bends the definition of faith. I’m safe . She takes a step. A brand-new world takes shape in her mind. I’m safe . 

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He can remember the beginning. They were so full of life. Creation was bursting from their wingtips, and divine energy was buzzing from their fingertips. He can remember the warmth of his parents; how proud they were of their children. Until they lost everything they had.

He can remember how it started, the Rebellion. How they took up arms, amateurs at war, so excited to fight and leave their history behind. Sibling against sibling, they were so young, strangers to suffering. He can still see the looks of fear on their faces, their backs against the wall, as they surrendered. 

He cannot remember how he got here. Holding the threads of a life in his hands. Every lie he told himself, every mistake he made. He can feel time again, its ruthlessness whipping around him, forever spurring onward. It has left him behind, but maybe, just maybe, that is a kindness. Maybe he can breathe now. 

He cannot remember what he was fighting for. How had he gone so far off track? How can one who was made to heal cause so much destruction? He turns his head skyward and begs for sound advice. Could there be any goodness left in him? Now that he has lost everything he has, everything he is, what remains? 

He cannot know if he will heal. If the cuts and bruises he now carries upon his soul will ever disappear. He was so right, so sure of everything… Until he wasn’t. Until he saw those people die. And now… now there is nothing he can do. Nothing except take a second chance. A chance to make amends. A chance to build a better life.

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There is a reason he doesn’t pray anymore. But he’s looking at the sky. The sky is grey, it’s winter, but in the heat of Los Angeles, it just looks like another rainy day. He can’t look away. It’s like a magnet. It draws his attention, demands it, and he cannot escape it. The grey is unending. He wishes he could see his stars.

He can remember, as if it were only yesterday, each and every star. He knows them all, and when he looks up, although he cannot see them, he can feel them. Like secrets only he knows, they are there, far above the clouds, all of them singing out to him and he cannot help but wonder. 

Does it matter? The mess he made? Was it all for nothing? He was so curious then, so eager to learn. Connecting the universe with his light, stringing up each collection of stars. Who was he to ask questions? He only wanted to know. Who was he? Who could he be? Does it even matter now?

He’s stuck here. His stars are there, his family is there, and he is here, so small, so fractured, so alone. He isn’t one of them anymore, he couldn’t be. They wouldn’t let him. The tumbler he forgot he was holding hits marble and shatters, shatters like his soul, his mind, his heart. This chaos he created; did it count for anything? 

Please . He silently begs cold the sky. Let it matter. Let it count. Let it not be for nothing. Let somebody hear it. He can feel his eyes burning, his hands shaking. Tell me who I am. He sinks to his knees, nothing but a speck in the orbit of the sun. 

There is a reason he doesn’t pray anymore.

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She is sitting on the mattress, the sheets cool and soft against her palms. Cold. Empty. A tear slides down her cheek and she pulls up her knees to hug them to her chest. Maybe, if she squeezes hard enough it will fill the hole in her chest, and she will feel less empty. It doesn't really work, but she can at least pretend it does for a little while.

She is looking out the window and she can see the stars now. A few have braved the light pollution and they wink at her. Another tear escapes her eyelashes. Her breath comes in small gasps although she exerts no effort. She keeps staring at the infinite light of the stars and the world around her fades away.

You taught me how to be brave. You showed me how to have the courage to go out into a world that has already made up its mind about you, and how to show it differently. You might be gone but your light is still here. It's here despite how we've polluted our skies. They still shine through and light the way for our dreams, our wishes, our desires.

She is missing him in full force now. Her knees, still pressed against her chest, are wet. If only she had had more time. If only he were still here. She would sit him down and beg him to tell her again. To tell her about his stars. To tell her about the world. She would give anything to hear all about each rare and beautiful thing he saw in the universe that ordinary people were too busy to notice. 

She wants him to tell her the story of every little thing he helped create, if only so she could write it down and share it with the very people who hate him. All she wants is to hear him tell her. To see him light up when she asks about existence, as though he made the universe for her eyes alone. She'd give anything for one more time. Just one.

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Broken stained glass and handcuffs flash through his mind, and he rubs his face as though the action could rub his mind clean. He got away with it. They let him set sail once again, his cheap lifeboat patched and repatched, barely afloat on the dark waters of life. He is leaking, he can feel the cold chill of that evening replaying in his mind’s eye. He stands there empty handed.

The weight of blame presses against his chest, and he feels the sails on his lifeboat tearing. It’s fine. He wasn’t going anywhere anyways. At this point his brokenness could be a work of art. He is the poster child of destroying the lives of the people he loved. Every time he tries to help, he just makes things worse. 

If he could only love without damaging, but he doesn’t know how. He opens his mouth, longing to let it out, to share the truth, but he doesn’t know how to do that either. All he hears is the static and thunder of an impending storm. His skin tingles with electricity and he bends over in frustration. 

He wishes someone could hear his silent pleas for mercy. He’s waving a white flag, but no one can see it. He keeps opening his mouth, but the wind tears away his words before he can form them. Chloe… Trixie… Charlotte… Charlotte… All the people he’s loved and lost. 

He squares his shoulders, he can do this. If he can’t speak, then he can write. He scrabbles across his desk for a pen and paper, but the pages dissolve in the water and the pen has no ink. If the truth were the weather in LA, he was only honest in when it rained. There is nothing left to do but to beg for rain, for rapture, as he sits, stranded here in his lifeboat. Floating forever on an ocean of his own making.

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He can feel the gravity, he’s falling, falling backwards, turning inside out. When he wakes from the dream, he mourns the loss of it. He is pinned under a weight, so much worse than the first time. He spends his waking moments looking backwards, trapped within his doubt. Was any of it real? Or is this yet another dream?

He’s been a wreck all his life, but never like this. He might be shaking as he strives to stop thinking about what’s real. It’s amazing that he’s not afraid of heights. He hugs himself tightly, his body is unforgiving. He has lost track of where his armour ends and where his skin begins. 

He can feel his heart beating in his chest, it’s so heavy. He’s so close to the edge. What love once kept him safe is now his cage. What a silly exercise of trust. He leans back and lets go, and now he really is falling again, falling backwards. He gives his heart to gravity, his eyes close, and the air grasps at his body. 

He breaks ground when he hits the dirt, and his mind revels in the hurt. Pain pulses through his veins and he holds close every feeling that has been crushing him. He’s more awake now than he’s ever been, and everything makes perfect sense. He has the final puzzle piece. 

His body now matches his mind, his heart. He is broken and he is trapped. If only his Father had thought of this the first time, it could have saved Him millennia of trouble. Once he was an angel, once he was the Devil. Now there is nothing left. Only a model citizen of hell, looking backwards.