MAKE YOUR STATEMENT. FACE YOUR FEAR.

---------

Coming home from Rhyl was a relief, no longer having to share so little space in a caravan with his sisters and brother with his parents only one thin wall away. Home is still the same, but with the blessing of his own bedroom and as much as he likes his siblings -- loves them, of course, and enjoyed the moments of sleep squeezed between them all -- he prefers his own space without them. For the lack of arguing, mostly.

Even better, though, he’ll be able to see Mike again; summer’s not that close to being over and there’ll be more time to just spend together. The matter of lightning guilt doesn’t even enter his mind yet.

It’s the furthest thing from his mind, his own... muddling of feelings mushed together. He’s fourteen, and Mum says his teenage years are gonna be a muddle and mess, a shifting period, and he knows that, yes. But the muddle, this particular muddle is... well, if it was just contained within him, if it didn’t concern a string between him and Mike, it’d be easier to figure out, or at least ignore. Yet the string twists, invisibly, curling Dominic’s insides with the sensation of butterflies, fleeting but always surprising.

A maybe-crush, in short. Almost definitely. A dream of a kiss isn’t strictly a friendship thing, is it? Maybe it’s just... maybe it’s just the shifting period of teenage years.

He’s more than a little scared of messing things up between him and Mike. He doesn’t expect Mike to like him back, really. Not like that.

When he’s finished re-packing and storing away his stuff, and free to go, all his maybe-thoughts and possibly-nots are swept away easily by the sight of Mike. Dominic can’t help the grin that takes over his face, and-- he means, entirely, solely, to go for a hug, as tight as a vice and as grounding as the earth, but his brain, his stupid muddle in teenage shifting period brain, leans to more. Which, yeah! Dominic would love to if he wasn’t-- stupid!

It’s a kiss. Of course. In the middle of Mike’s kitchen while his parents are elsewhere in the house, and Dominic hugs him tight and kisses him on the corner of his mouth. ... Could he brush that off as a friendship thing? Oh fuck oh shit--

“I’ve missed you,” he says, finally pulling back enough to look at Mike properly. Ish. He tries not to look at his face just in case. Dominic feels pink, still grinning.

Mike is quiet for a moment, then two, and Dominic’s heart is ready to just burst out of his chest of its own free will, before Mike speaks. “Missed you, too.”

Anthony John Swain, dad. born 1947.

Zoe Madeleine Swain, nee Rideout, mum. born 1948.

Lydia Genevieve Ellingham, nee Swain, older sister. born 1972.

Daniel Edwin Ellingham, Lydia’s husband. born 1970.

Mary Louise Ellingham, Lydia & Daniel’s daughter. born 1999.

Victor Jacob Swain, older brother. born 1976.

Diana Eleanor Swain, nee Jadwin, Victor’s wife. born 1975.

Eleanor Diana Swain, Victor & Diana’s daughter. born 2005.

Florence Christina Swain, younger sister. born 1982.

Chloe Christina Swain, Florence’s daughter. born 2004.

Alexandra Serena Makepeace, nee Swain, younger sister. born 1984.

Lucas Milo Makepeace, Alexandra’s husband. born 1985.

Sean Milo Makepeace, Alexandra & Lucas’ son. born 2010.

Andrew William Makepeace, Alexandra & Lucas’ son. born 2010.

Elizabeth Serena Makepeace, Alexandra & Lucas’ daughter. born 2013.

he’s bolt upright and clamping a hand around where the needle’s supposed to go in, panicking because he’s not really dealt with injury in a long time, and has forgotten. the fall isn’t something he’s thinking about right now, nor is he thinking of lightning or lichtenberg figures, just the fact of a needle half-way out of his arm until a nurse comes over and fixes it for him. he’s given a sedative, likely because of the fall he’d taken. something spectacular, the nurse wonders, how he didn’t end up dead.

and dominic does think about it a little. about how it was long way to fall down and how the javelin of lightning had hurt more than the landing. he never felt the landing.

he drifts in and out of sleep. kathy visits sometimes, while he’s recovering, and he appreciates it in an awkward friend-who-is-also-your-ex sort of way. his mother visits as well. just the once, but it’s more than enough, and he lets her go with a kiss on the cheek. his siblings are all busy but they send their love and well-wishes with mum, which is fine.

he doesn’t expect to see mike, but there he is. mike’s mouth is a thin line. dominic can’t help but think, in his current haze of sedative-induced sleepiness, that mike’s a little peeved that they’re not keeping to their new routine of catching up every thursday for an hour before returning to their otherwise-separate lives. it keeps dominic from wearing the guilt too long, although he likes to think he’s being... oh, less obnoxious about it.

he’d had a crush on mike, once, when they were younger. in what might’ve been a fleeting moment, or day, or month, in a way that may or may not have been, perhaps an intense rush of friendship love. now, though, he thinks maybe it wouldn’t be so difficult or muddled a thing for him to fall into again. perhaps he won’t ever tell mike -- there’s already too much that’s muddied between them, and dominic knows he’s to blame for it in his anxiously guilty way. ah, well.

“what’s a handsome devil such as yourself doing in a place like this?” he tries to ask, only for it to come out mumbled out of a lazy, grinning mouth. mike snorts quietly, and lends dominic a small bedside mirror. well, “lend”, more like hold it up for him.

“... oh.” dominic raises a hand to branching patterns on his face, his eyebrows raising when he watches them trickle down his neck and disappear down his hospital gown.

S1

dominic: buried, after almost getting got by the lichtenberg figure post-ex altiora burning (since it can’t get mike for... whatever reason).

timothy: corruption, if he had the selfishness for murder.

naomi: vast, she’s short enough, also fuck both the lonely and the buried.

sebastian a.: flesh-aligned, courtesy of jared.

david: also flesh-aligned, courtesy of tom.

lawrence: hunt.

jason: desolation. thought about scrapping this one but his attitude towards the institute in his statement is... something to think about, even if it was out of desperation to save his son. hmm.

S2

jordan: desolation. yes this was inspired by that one fic and also fanart why do you ask.

tessa: extinction. fuck it, fuck the spiral also.

S3

like when they meet, they seem to instantly click, and i like to think it’s a genuine connection, true love. that said, i do think that the Lonely had some influence over it - what better way to feed on loneliness than to draw two lonely people together and then to have them be torn apart (in this case, by evan’s death, likely orchestrated by his family at least in some way). and naomi, who was alone before evan, and “actually had something of a social life” (her words), is now alone again but not of her own will - the choice was made for her, to her detriment.

bc if evan wouldn’t feed the Lonely he would be fed to the Lonely, and so would Naomi

but not really spared -- he was still subjected to it (and probably could’ve died if he didn’t move off that conveyor belt). and quite interestingly, he shot tom himself. yes, he was given the bolt gun and tom guided his hand to tom’s forehead, but david shot him, pulled the trigger himself. so i wonder if at some point, during david’s trek around the super duper Flesh(TM) slaughterhouse, tom kinda-sorta changed his mind or just took a gamble and... tried to see if introducing david to being an avatar, or at least the baby steps leading up to avatardom.

[...]