Hello! This'll be my first fanfic ever so please leave any comments, critiques, and opinions below. This'll probably be a very short fanfic (two chapters long, maybe three) and, hopefully, will set for a different tone then most expect in pairing fics.
Without further delay, here's the inroduction and prologue to my first fanfic:
Haven
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
There is no such thing as a holy light...
There is no silver lining...
And there will be no angel to cradle you in the nights of despair.
The rage had long devoured them; hope now lost in the deep stomach of the machine. Life, or what remained of it, was flawed. 10 inches tall at best, made of thin metal frames and fragile cloth, they were all that remained, the only hope, against a monstrous beast of steel.
And there were no lights to guide them...
There were no silver linings in their miserable creation...
Most certainly there were no angels to shield them from the fears of their innocent minds.
...
...
There were only rusted copper hands and pen nib fingers, hooking to each other, driving away the fear with each other's presence.
---------------------Chapter 1---------------------
The nights were unbearable. They were chilled, frightening with the ever lurking presence of the machine. It hunted, everlasting, hungry for the final breaths of the dreaded vermin that dared still hang for to the likes of life. Life was clever, it could hide. And life was strong in some ways.
But life was mad, doomed to oblivion when it held no hope. So long as the machine existed, there would be no hope.
And to drown the suicidal feeling, they had to cling onto something else other than the illusion of a peaceful world.
6's uneven optics darkened at the logic. His fingers no longer danced over the papers like they once had. They dragged, languid ink lines bleeding into the yellow and old surface of the pages he sat upon. He could not escape the occasional realization. There was no love here. There was no true attachment. Not in the nights in which 1 made his silent way to 2's workshop. Not in the days in which 7 reappeared from the Emptiness in search of the brute behemoth that guarded their leader…
And neither was their love in his scapegoat.
Almost sightlessly, he examined his completed work. It was stained and blotted, nearly clumsy in the amount of dripped ink, but it was there. Two figures… or halves of two silhouettes at least. Desperate, confused and lost. Both yearning for some piece of mind or heart. Both attempting to hide this horrible pain of solitude and fright within each other.
He wouldn't shun it; he wouldn't ever refuse the company for as twisted as it was. But it did hurt. It was painful to know this. There was no blame to be laid, there was no guilt in what they shared. But there was the hollow sentiment of things left incomplete.
He wondered if 5 felt it too…
----
Darkness pulled down on the earth, the wind howled quietly outside. The artist thrashed in his covers, clawing at the floor which served for his bedding. The ghosts came to haunt him like almost every night; frightening him, stealing from him the rest he needed, filling him instead with unwanted visions. Visions he had to endure and illustrate in hopes of finding someone who could carry the load of knowledge with him.
Today, the ghosts were particularly cruel, wounding his feeble heart with the loneliness of the world, staining and scarring it with the reality that there was indeed no love. That they never shared words of affection, only of reassurance. That they hadn't truly kissed, only brushed lips in a bizarre manner of friendship. Were they humans, they would be frowned upon by all their society. And, carrying human souls, they could still sense how this manner of meeting was wrong.
He sprang up, breathing heavily, optics mere pinpricks as they stared down at his shaken body. 6 swallowed down a frightened sob, briefly experiencing the horrors of nyctophobia. With heavy thoughts, he made his unsteady and clumsy way to the elevator, forcing his trembling arms to lower the creaking lift. It may be wrong, it may be filthy, but it was his only comfort.
This was his only haven.
His feet led the torturous way down the obscure hallways of the cathedral, towards the shredded cloth that served as a door to 5's room. There was no light within, nor was there sound. There never was. Hesitantly, the striped prophet entered the living space of the medic, guiding himself in the darkness to the matchbox which served as a bed. Upon the mounds of discarded fabric within the old box was what the artist searched for; a curled burlap figure, soundlessly asleep, never resting.
6 climbed onto the bed, pressing himself against 5's back, nuzzling his forehead onto the warm body in hopes to chase away the nightmares. A voice murmured from within the shape before him, groggy, but not confused or startled.
"Nightmare?"
The soft voice asked. 6 only brought himself to nod in return, not once glancing up to the medic. The other shifted before him, the imprinted number no longer facing 6, now replaced by two buttons which the artist knew almost too well. He could trace each brief scratch and scrape on the plastic surface if he willed to. Gentle arms laced around his trembling shoulders, forcing the curled striped figure into a comforting embrace. Initially, 6 resisted, feeling ill and almost scared to give in to these touches once more. But it was 5. He was there to keep them well cared for. 6 needed a different sort of caring to. Yes, he was just caring for him. The artist kept repeating that to himself as he relaxed into the embrace.
"S'okay. They won't follow you here."
The fragile soul clenched, 6 buried his face into the warm shoulder of his companion. They would. The ghosts always would follow him. Not in their essence and presence, but in the poison they laid in his thoughts. The ever growing toxin that misted 6's joy and replaced it instead with crippling fear. Sharp digits clung onto the steady arms of the fifth before him, whimpers shaking out from his voice box. "No more… can't lead… no… nothing here." He spoke incoherently, words that his mate would never come to understand, words truthful to portray the sadness of his small heart.
"Six?"
The artist shook his head, nuzzling the base of 5's neck, feeling the other hold him tightly in return. "Scared… nothing here… don't want to believe… but there's nothing." He repeats, sensing the worry within the medic, sensing the fright in the other's single optic to see 6 so distraught.
"It's fine, no nightmares here, Six. You can sleep here, you can stay here. Don't have to be so scared, I'm here."
Drowning in the sweet words, drinking them in hopes to feed the dwindling possibility that this was more than just a nonsensical friendship. There had to be, 5 wouldn't be like this if there was nothing more than that. No, not 5. He wasn't even this close with 2. There had to be. There simply had to be. 6 couldn't bring himself to believe that there wasn't. Uncertain and shaking, terrified and desperate, the striped artist brought a hand to brush against 5's cheek, stroking the patch that covered the missing eye; the medic's imperfection. Leaning in towards the other, noting the surprise reflected in the fifth's eye due to the change of nature, 6 whispered.
"Guide me… please guide me… where I can see some light…"
