Constellate, Isolate
By Larzel
You feel like the world is imploding. Like the entire universe decided to collapse in on you. Crushing in. Squeezing the life out. Everything is caving in. Folding up. You should able to handle this. You're the family's stable ground. The weight of that adds to the burden squashing you to the ground. Smashed into the dust like your self-sacrificing teammate, like your little brother. Unwanted memories flood you, adding to the tremendous wait. Leaving you in a space so small you can't breathe.
"Are you okay? He was your best friend."
"I'm fine."
You feel like the world is shattering. Every fragment sharper than glass. Every fragment slicing your heart open so you wonder how it still beats. Every shard piercing your soul reminding you he is gone. The on who showed you how to reject your past. The one who trusted you to not return to the life. The life that didn't even leave a body. Your future plans lie shattered on the floor.
He smiles. Speaking words that lie. Smiling false assurances.
"Are you sure?" She asks. Hearing empty words. Seeing broken smiles.
You can't breathe. All the memories crushing in. Assaulting you with their weight. Chipping away at your carefully crafted walls like ocean waves on the shore. The walls protecting you from the darkness you know you're capable of. After all, you are the one who manipulated them all. Treating them like marionettes, not teammates. Not like friends. Not like family. You feel the swirls or darkness building up behind those walls. Those crumbling walls. The walls smashing you into that tiny space. The walls threatening to suffocate you. You just want it to go away. You just want to breathe.
"Totally. And he was your boyfriend. I should be asking how you are."
"I'm okay."
You can't stand. You feel like that magic trick where the magician rips the cloth from under the glass. Except not only the cloth, but the table and the entire room. The entire universe ripped away. And everyone expects you to still stand. Everything falls away. Leaving you empty. Leaving you desperately grasping for something, anything, to keep you grounded. To replace the tether he once was. To be your lightning rod. Because your choices pushed him into doing it. Into being a hero. You hate heroes. But even the hate is slipping away. You feel lost like a balloon a child carelessly lets go of in the park. Drifting away to vanish into the dark, vast night.
She pretends the only thing holding her together didn't just vanish.
He pretends he isn't crushed under the things left unsaid and the fights unresolved.
The lies slip easily from their tongues. Smooth, yet toxic. Scorching their mouths, numbing their senses. The lies lose meaning.
She sees through his lies. Sees how he's desperately trying to hold it together. Trying to hold back the swirling black waters while he drowns, sinking deeper and deeper with every avoided conversation and everything lie that flows like water from his tongue.
He sees through her mirage. Sees how she feels like she's floating, unable to find the ground. Falling further and further as she pretends to be grounded. To be the rock-solid person she was before he disappeared all to soon. Falling with every evaded questions of concern and every false expression on her face.
The weight is too much. You won't be able to take the crushing strain of it all. Your heart will harden under the pressure. Like how plants become coal. Things harden in the dark, you realize. Every taunt ever yelled in anger. The fight you never really resolved. The way you dragged him back into the hell he finally escaped. It haunts you. Like a persistent spirit, hiding in every corner, every nook and cranny. The pressure climbs. The guilt and fear and loss building behind a dam, ready to break free and crushing your mangled heart into something dark and hard. The breaking point is near.
She knows she should do something, anything, to drag him out of the pressure consuming him. But she's too damn lost to help him. She'd only mess it up, right? How can someone so fractured, so lost, help him? They spend more and more time together, but it only sweeps her world further away. She should feel lonely when she's standing right next to him. But his presence emphasizes her dissonance from everyone else. She's must be broken to feel like that. But leaving him would be to hard. She can't handle having anything else falling apart.
He understands he should pull her back, at least attempt to. But the weight is too much. What if he sweeps her up in his dark swirl of emotions? What if he drags her into hell with him? Every moment spent with her increases the burden. Each second of aloneness next to her slowly corroding the dam. This is his fault. He's the one who built walls. The one who is about to explode from the guilt, the hurt, the loss. She's a constant reminder, but his guilt doesn't let him leave. He's the one who broke her. Who killed his best friend. And she's the one paying. He doesn't deserve leaving her, his scarlet letter, behind. No matter how much his walls muffle him from others.
You feel completely alone. You're fading away, becoming an empty husk. Like the cicada skins you used to hunt with your sister. Disgusting, dry, and oh so fragile. You wonder if your heart will eventually fade to dust. Without him to hold it together. Your walls had been removed and now you're paying for letting him in. Every good memory mocks you. Reminding you, you won't be able to make new ones. The taunts push you further away. Corroding you. Rotting you to nothing. You are nothing anymore. You just want sorting solid to grasp, but you find nothing.
They are together so much, the lines begin to blur. They fail to see how their distance, their severance from reality is starting others on a downward spiral as well. How the little brothers and cousins, desperately trying to save them, are hurting too. They fail to see how their actions effect the others grouped around them, begging to be let in. Begging to be allowed to help. How their inability to cope is destroying the already broken leader, the once-cheerful friend, the one who already felt alone. They pretend to shine like stars, hiding the swirling black holes in their hearts. They don't want anyone to know. Don't want anyone to see how even though they constellated, they could be more isolated. Failing to see how their isolation causes desolation.
Authors Note: Thank you for reading! This idea was mostly me playing around with different perspectives and point of view, trying to make it feel fragmented.
In case you're confused. This is Dick and Artemis after Wally died. The non-italicized part alternates between Dick and Artemis, starting with Dick. I had Dick's sections focus on being crushed by loss and Artemis as losing touch because of it. Also, the fight was about how Dick lied to everyone.
Also the last paragraph doesn't mean that it's their fault they are hurting. It's just means that ignoring people who care and shutting things out makes things worse.