[align=center][fancypost bgcolor=none; bordercolor=transparent; borderwidth=0px; width: 370px;font-size:8pt;line-height: 130%;][justify]/ i just finished typing up a massive oneshot only for everything to fucking die and for me to fucking lose it so fucking bye bye long post haha never trying that fucking shit again i'm so fuCKING MAD
Nighttales didn't get it. Even as he allowed the softened, upturned soil, to sift over his son's dead body, firmly clasping their vessel in the ground.. Nighttales still couldn't get it. There had to have been something. There had to have been a reason leading up to it. A suicide. It wasn't something that someone picked, out of the blue - it was a choice that ate away at someone. It ate away at them, because it was tempting - perhaps somewhat frightening, for a while. But, once one comes to terms with the idea, it's a little easier.. It's a little easier, to let everything go. It's a little easier, to erase oneself. It's a little easier, to trade-off the idea of being able to think, for a lack of pain, or a lack of stress, or a lack of sorrow, or of guilt and remorse.
He should've noticed it. There must have been hints: well-hidden, but hints, nevertheless. There must have been.. But, he hadn't noticed, had he? Nighttales hadn't seen it, had he? Just as how he hadn't recognised Vol's feelings.. Just as how he hadn't realised he had been hurting Spectre, through keeping secrets from her for so long.. Yet, had he remained blind? Nighttales was supposed to be rather talented, at picking up on things - studying was his forte, after all. Yet, it.. hadn't worked, this time. It hadn't worked. He was now caught in a loop, of realising that his ability to pick up on things had ensnared him in several other agendas, instead of the expressions of his son.
'Oh, still trying to figure something out?'
Shut up.
'Hey, it's not as if I'm blaming you.'
Shut up.
'It's not like you did anything.'
Demios..
'Though, I guess that's the point.. You didn't do anything. Your son had to take his own life, before you noticed that something was up, right?'
Nighttales wouldn't object to that.
'I hate you.'
'Are you sure that it's me you hate?'
'Fuck off.'
Why was she right? Why was she asking all of the correct questions? Why was she getting to know him well enough to comprehend that she wasn't whom he happened to hate: after all, she was merely hammering the nail in the coffin, no? He knew it, already. He knew that, when it boiled down to it, it really was his fault. It was his fault, for letting it go unnoticed. It was his fault, that Okami had taken his own life. Perhaps, not directly. Nighttales hadn't driven a knife into their stomach, and gouged the gears from their body, after all. Yet, he had a feeling that he might as well have.. Or no. It was.. a little different. It was the knowledge that he was at fault, and the knowledge that he wasn't involved - and the knowledge that he should've been involved, because only then, would he have been able to have prevented this.
Nighttales felt that remorse coil itself around his throat. But even then, that was him focusing on himself: on his own guilt. When it came down to it, all he wanted was his son back. All he wanted was to somehow gain the chance to see his kid again - to bring him back. Sure, the family he had ruined before, had returned, in some-way or another. Perhaps a little more broken than before, but at peace in their own separate ways.. He couldn't blindly believe that the same would occur, with Okami. He didn't have the audacity to make such a ridiculous assumption, as if to save himself from the pain.
The serval could barely breath. A part of him didn't want to. And yet, the sharp burn of crisp air cleaving his lungs, was perhaps comforting, in comparison to all else that could be felt within. It was all hollow, and yet, festering with simmering anger, blatant denial, pathetic bargaining, malice, and the slow ache of melancholy. It was as if someone had driven a knife between his ribs, and twisted it, until his insides screamed in desperate protest, whilst he'd accept the anguish as they churned.
He'd be alright. He'd be alright. He'd be fine. He was always fine. It always ended up.. just fine. Whether he was the one whom always deserved to be fine, was a different story. He wasn't dead, but what he would do to take the place of his son was unfathomable, at this point in time. Nighttales would take it, now, willingly - not because of self-loathing, or pity, but because his son hadn't needed to die. His son hadn't done anything deserving of his eventual demise.. Because his son's life had meant much more to him, than his own. Because Nighttales felt as if he'd refuse to live with himself, if there was some opportunity to switch places with his son, that he hadn't taken.
It was at this point in time, that he would tuck one, singular white flower, against his son's grave, heterochromatic orbs skirting the ground. He felt tears burn his eyes, pressing against the back of each socket - though refraining from displaying, and instead, loitering in his skull as a dull, sorrowful ache. All he wanted to do was scream - but that wasn't him. He knew that he'd have to pull himself together. That he wasn't the victim here. That he'd have to hold everything together for now, and that he wasn't the one who deserved to wallow in his own self-loathing. A part of him itched to do something, and another part of him was tired from it all, too. Jaded. It was a jaded pit of emotion that he had grown too lethargic to scramble his way out of, again.
Nighttales would drown it out eventually. He'd move forwards, eventually, even if he didn't deserve to. Okami was supposed to be alive. Okami was supposed to be alive, and Nighttales knew it. This.. It was all a loop. It was all a loop, and he detested that circular-stream of thought, that acted as if it knew where it was going, but represented an un-moving pit, instead.