Just a note: I have not seen Critical Role at all. I'm working off their fandom personalities and what I can glean from the wiki.
And he considers life where he was never rescued.
He would have rotted away in a familiar cell, feet firmly rooted to a crusted cell floor. Water seeps into his clothes and smoke out of his heart. Shadows looming in corridors of stone and mud make him forget what he is living for. Then, one day, a sweeping visage takes what is left of his fragile humanity. He is dead... and staying dead.
So lying flat on his bed, he imagines this hypothetical life, or lack of one so. He considers the pros, but then realizes there are none. He remembers despair, and feels an aching tremble as he relapses again into its cold embrace.
But comforting hands always bring him back. They are wrapped around his torso, and their heat permeates his being. He distantly recalls that those thoughts are not real. His family may be dead, but he is still here and alive because of her.
Living is a nice feeling.
And he thinks of a life where the Briarwoods never existed.
He is locked in his room, tinkering with questionable substances. He is trapped within this sprawling mess of tools and cogs. There is little natural light, not that it truly mattered. He is accustomed to working late into the night; the forge is his sun. And, one day, he finds his life has passed him by. He is getting married to some nameless girl. He only musters the motivation to attend his own wedding because his parents beg him. The girl is nice enough, but her hair is a shade too light, and her voice is a tad too innocent. She never calls him "darling."
So he lives his life with this girl he doesn't know, in a town without walls, in a home without a hearth. His dark hair becomes scruffy and he continues to build. But, whatever he tries to build is crumbling; it is shapeless, formless, meaningless (he is meaningless).
His wife is pregnant, but he can't bring himself to care. After all, it's not his child. He locks himself in his forge to avoid distractions.
In passing, he hears about half-human, half-elf twins. Whatever the topic doesn't seem of much importance. Something about their father and a dead mother, but the third de Rolo son can't bring himself to care.
There is a ziggurat under Whitestone. A god beckons his followers.
And he ponders life where Cassandra got away instead.
His back starts bleeding (there is an arrow embedded in his body, his soul crumbles), a choking noise rips through his throat. Surely Cassandra would cry for him. Silently he begs her to go on. As her figure disappears, he waits patiently in the red haze. His body is heaved up and thrown in a familiar small cell (it smells of his blood). Ripley is ecstatic to see him. He should be glad, too, she says. Ripley allows him to live; she enjoys reminding him that there is no longer anyone to save him. He is told that his sister is dead; Ripley said she burned Cassandra's body. Sometimes, Ripley throws ashes in his face, a reunion with his sister she claims. Eventually, he believes her.
Chains scar his wrists, his back is branded, and his mind is addled in red. The rusted handcuffs infect the open wounds, and so his hands are removed. Everything is a soothing red.
He is rescued. He is broken. It is endless, Ripley is heartless, she lives on in delusions. He is mindless, and handless; there isn't much of a person, let alone brother, left. Cassandra cries for him, a pair of twins pity him from afar.
Ripley is dead, and he might as well be, too.
And a fleeting thought of life where she died creeps by.
It's his fault—he knows it, Vax knows, Vox Machina knows. Guilt and self-hatred become too much and he cuts himself off. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, but this distance is too far, too everlasting. It is better to be alone. He is bitter, unfit for the company of others. He speaks through abhorrent clauses and self-defaming phrases. One self-fulfilling prophecy later, and he gets what he wants.
And it's so terrible, so horrifically appalling, that he can't even consider it long. Because life where she is gone is too much for even him to handle.
He tries his best to forget, but it is impossible because it is her.
And he considers life where Orthax never took his freedom.
In a dream, a wispy figure visits him. The black man is persuasive and pervasive. It offers him all his pitiful desires. But in that moment, he is indecisive. He doesn't sign the book. He is left with doubts and what-could-have-beens.
Life is simpler, he is weaker yet stronger still. Revenge is not his meaning. Instead, he has no meaning. He never hunts Ripley, and he never meets Vox Machina. As a vagabond without a purpose, life is dull. He is always hiding.
Pressing the glasses up on his face, he enters another ghost town. He changes his name, but his hair still reminds him of his past. He makes another invention, but it always has a different name on it.
The rumor mill heaves and capsizes. While wandering through the market, he hears about his home. In the snippets of conversation he eavesdrops on, the Briarwoods come up often. He tries to ignore it. No amount of revenge could bring back his family. Their corpses remain overturned and disgraced in the ruins of Whitestone.
He doesn't have the will or the means to return. Whitestone is gone. A new god has ascended.
She kisses him and he is brought to life. It is figurative and literal in the way that she revives him. He is obsessed and too far gone to live without her (he can't really die when she will always bring him back either).
He kisses her in the forest. Her face is red, red, red. He is lovestruck, smitten, infatuated. All he can do is turn and say that they will talk later, because talking now would take the last of his self-control and run.
And he remembers that none of those are real. Because where he is right now, a life where they are happy together, is what really happened. Reality is sweet, a tad tragic but fulfilling. He sighs and sinks down into better dreams.
I wrote this over a year ago for a friend. Honestly, I think I posted it on this site, but deleted it? I can't remember at all. So, either this is a first post or repost, I have no idea.
Unbeta'ed, but I have read through a few times for grammar. Please feel free to point out any grammatical errors.